Anti-Semitism in the United States : $b Its history and causesLevinger, Lee J. (Lee Joseph)
History
Anti-Semitism in the United States : $b Its history and causes
Levinger, Lee J. (Lee Joseph)
Antisemitism -- United States; Jews -- United States
Of course, this distinction depends, finally, on the definition of mind
which we are prepared to accept. Dennes gives an adequate summary and
criticism of Durkheim, for instance, who considered collective mind to
consist of the collective ideas or representations of a society;
and of Wundt, who considered mind an integration of processes, not
of ideas, and therefore sought for the group mind in the collective
results of group mental process, in speech, religion and custom. But
Dennes himself seems confused by the need of defining mind without
regard to bodily structure. He says: [22]“Individual minds or persons
have or produce bodies as well as objective mental products. But social
groups are not minds and have no bodies. They are associations of
minds.” MacDougall defines mind as [23]“An organized system of mental
or purposive forces,” and continues, “In the sense so defined, every
highly organized human society may be properly said to possess a group
mind.” While MacDougall’s definition seems circular in nature, it still
recognizes that a functional definition of mind can make no distinction
of structure, whether any particular mind is associated with one or
many bodies. Lindeman calls mind [24]“the total equipment with which
man responds to his environment”, which seems more than one can accept,
for “total equipment” would include hands and feet, as well as mind.
A more precise statement of the same general tenor appears in Dr.
Singer’s Mind as Behavior:
[25]Consciousness is not something inferred from behavior; it _is_
behavior. Or, more accurately, our belief in consciousness is an
expectation of probable behavior based on an observation of actual
behavior, a belief to be confirmed or refuted by more observation, as
any other belief in a fact is to be tried out.
Thus, any functional definition of mind that has no reference to brain
or nervous system, must apply and does apply in the group of persons
in exactly the same sense as to the single individual. If there is
“unified behavior,” if there is “organized system of purposes,” if
there is “response to environment,” then we have mind, whether the
behavior, response, or purpose dwell in one or two or many bodies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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